


a piece of a churchyard fits everybody

by beanarie



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Death Fic, F/M, M/M, Silverflint Drabble of the Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 05:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16423088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: “Sit first,” Thomas insists, gently, before he stabs James in the chest.Long John Silver was hanged in Nassau town.





	a piece of a churchyard fits everybody

**Author's Note:**

> This began with a DOW prompt (trust, energy, mother) and then I decided to whack my favorite character? Also I, possibly, made Luke Arnold chop off all his hair? It's been a weird week. Title belongs to George Herbert.

_“You told me you never knew your mother,” Flint says._

_“That is where we lived.” Silver points to a burnt foundation on a grassy knoll. “And over that hill is the beach where I made my escape.”_

_His hair is so short it doesn’t curl. His face is clean-shaven and gaunt. He looks like a ghost._

_“Trust this, or don’t. I have nothing else to give.”_

James wakes to the sound of Thomas’s soft snores. The dream fades, leaving behind a strange energy thrumming beneath his skin, an urgent need to go back.

*

Thomas is hiding something. The man has never been able to tell a lie worth a tinker’s cuss, not to James, and his deliberate cheer and averted gazes are all too transparent.

“Say what it is you have to say,” James says, kissing his fingers.

Thomas pushes his mouth together like the bud of a flower. James runs a thumb lightly over the back of Thomas’s hand.

“Sit first,” Thomas insists, gently, before he stabs James in the chest.

Long John Silver was hanged in Nassau town.

*

The laundress who taught Thomas how to do the washing up is married to a merchant with a ship that goes as far South as Georgia. From there James anticipates very little trouble getting the rest of the way.

He cannot explain why he is doing this, and it terrifies him. “You are my entire world.” He grasps the sides of Thomas’s face. “I will come back to you.”

“I know,” Thomas says. The self-satisfied undertone would seem out of place, if James were not so wholly familiar with this man.

He looks into Thomas’s eyes and says, “No.”

“I did not ask.”

*

Thomas is terrible at sea, wrong-footed and green in the face. Because he loves him, James does not once bring up whose idea it was for him to come.

“Tell me something about him?” Thomas asks one night. He is pale and restless and James owes him this and more.

“He was... a complete and utter reprobate.”

Thomas chuckles softly.

“I think I was the first to recognize that and want him around anyway.”

“Why did you?" He lays two fingers on James's wrist. "Want him around?”

There are many routes he could take with his response, from flippant ( _he had use in spite of his general uselessness_ ), to lewd ( _you never saw his arse_ ), to marginally if incompletely true ( _I needed him_ ). He gives up on choosing one long before Thomas finally manages to sleep. Still, if pressed, he could use that as an excuse.

*

A few miles from their destination, they are hailed by a smallish vessel. As they approach, James observes that it is crewed entirely by maroons. Once they get closer still, he can see Madi at the bow.

Immediately after he boards, she clasps his hands in hers and for a long time they remain like that, watching the waves together.

“This is real, I think,” she says. Her expression is impassive, but her eyes contain a storm. A lump develops in his throat. 

*

Max removes something from the top drawer of her desk and hands it to Madi. “You may not be privy to the whole story, Madame, but his funeral was paid for many times over.”

Madi’s fingers unclench after a moment, revealing a chunky ring that looks out of place off of Silver’s hand.

“He came to me, as he always did when he was desperate and alone and against a wall.”

James feels his upper lip curl into a sneer. “And you-“

Max lifts a hand. “We were not friends, but we were something more than allies. John Silver did not die at the end of a rope.” Her spine is very straight. “He died in a bed at one of my properties. I do not know from where his wound came or how long it festered, only that by the time he arrived there was nothing to be done. If it is any solace, he thought of you near the end. Both of you, and one other.”

Quickly, soundlessly, two hands making one tight fist, Madi exits the room.

“The street tells a very different story,” James points out.

She tilts her head in acknowledgment. “I never learned the man’s name. He strangled one of my girls. We chopped off his leg and stretched his neck for the world and Whitehall to see. Now there is justice for Poppy and Governor Featherstone appears disapproving of the pirate scourge.”

He has nothing to say, to any of that. She stands and offers to show where they buried him.

"Then you will leave," she says. He agrees without a hint of hesitation. There is nothing of home here anymore.

*

He finds Madi on the balcony playing with the ring, rolling it between two fingers. 

“One month after he returned without you, I learned I was with child.” She's always so strong, she has to be, but now her voice quivers. “I came very close to killing him myself at that point, but I settled for ignoring his presence on those cliffs until he could see with a glance how irrevocably things had changed.” 

He places a hand between her shoulders. She squeezes her eyes shut. 

“Akua, born on a Wednesday." Two tears spill down her cheeks. "It was not until Sunday he let himself take his eyes off her long enough to sleep.”

The very world around them freezes until he receives an answer to his question. “Is she well?”

Madi bites her lip against a sad smile and nods several times. Another tear falls. 

*

There is a flat, unblemished stone marking this bit of dirt as different from the rest. A cool breeze blows past as he sits. It does nothing; every part of him is near-boiling.

"Well done,” he says, shaking. He hopes the acid drips down far enough to reach him in the afterlife. "You ensured your daughter's entry, into a world that holds no safe place for her." James takes in loss and comes out with rage--numerous people have told him this, _life_ has told him this--and without anyone else to blame, his target has to be the one decaying beneath him. 

"You managed to avoid ever facing me and answering for what you did." 

_You sent me away and left yourself vulnerable to an early grave._

_You engineered THIS outcome._

For some time all he can do is breathe and watch Thomas pacing in the distance.

“I’ve been invited to meet her,” he says, as Thomas begins his approach. “Not certain how one conducts themselves with a small child. Shall I pass the time expounding on what a _fucking_ idiot her father was?”

*

_Silver sees to his latest round of injuries from the crew, tentatively touching a mark under his eye, stopping up a nosebleed with a scrap of handkerchief. A heady mixture of appalled, embarrassed, and impressed keeps trying to force a smile on Flint's face. These mealtime addresses are absurd, whether they have started working or not. “One of these schemes will get you killed some day,” he warns blandly._

_Silver pulls up his shirt to poke a bruise on his stomach, laughing. “I conduct my affairs with the very reasonable belief that I need never die as long as I choose to live.”_

_“No one lives forever.”_

_He smirks widely, opening a crack in his lip. “Why, Captain. You only say that because you’ve not yet known anyone who has.”_

*

"James, Love?" Thomas offers a hand.

On impulse, he grabs a pebble and drops it in one pocket before accepting help to his feet. He will not be returning here, yet somehow, as angry as he is, this does not feel like their last conversation.


End file.
